Never Neverland
by Grav
Summary: Did you ever consider letting Wendy go back?


**AN**: Okay, so Peter Pan wasn't published until 1911, which doesn't work well with the Sanctuary Timeline for about a million reasons. However, I still really want to write this, so we shall assume that Barrie came up with the story a LONG time before he wrote it (which is probably true anyway), and that he came to Gregory in the mid 1880s (I went with fall of '86, Barrie would have been 26) to talk about fairies for…research. Anyway, the prompt is_Gregory Magnus, James Barrie. Neverland_, and I got it from the sfa_history battle.

**Spoilers**: Let's just say "the story so far" and let it go at that.

**Disclaimer**: Not mine.

**Rating**: Teen.

**Characters**: Gregory Magnus, Helen Magnus, J.M. Barrie (historical)

**Summary**: Did you ever consider letting Wendy go back.

* * *

**(Never) Neverland**

"Did you ever consider letting Wendy go back?" Gregory asked, pouring the brandy.

"To Neverland?" Barrie asked. The young man sounded surprised at the question.

"Of course," Gregory said. "It was very nearly a paradise for her."

"I suppose," Barrie said thoughtfully. Gregory rather thought it sounded like he disagreed.

"But you never did think on it." This time, it wasn't a question.

"No," Barrie said. "I never did."

_Gregory thought there was something different about his daughter the moment he saw her at breakfast. At first he though John had proposed the night before, but given that Gregory had heard all four gentlemen leave together, he rather doubted it. John was bold, but not that bold. And yet, there was something about Helen, something that had not been there when he had left for Argentina and had somehow missed last night in his tired greetings. Something wonderfully, terribly _alive_. And he couldn't for the life of him think what it might be._

_The changes were small, at first. Strange noises in the house he couldn't place, and conversations with Watson that left him feeling like he was missing something that should be desperately obvious. Whatever they were doing, they were being exceptionally secretive, even for them, and for the first time, Gregory was a little bit afraid of his daughter and her coterie._

"I do not imagine Wendy would have liked Neverland as a grown woman," Barrie said, turning the glass of brandy in his hand. He was such a different man from the one who had come by to shyly ask Gregory his opinion of fairies. Whatever else this story was doing to him, it was making him sure in himself.

"But why did she have to grow up?" Gregory said. "Why did you make Peter so careless?"

"You don't notice time in paradise," Barrie said. "Particularly not when it's _your_ paradise. It would be easy to forget that someone else is waiting for you if there's nothing to indicate she's getting older."

_He caught them because of Tesla, or rather, because of their attempts to help him. Gregory was used to Dr. Watson spending all hours of the night in the lab with Helen, but when Mr. Griffin joined them, he began to wonder what they were about. A few artless questions were met with tight eyes and a very poor cover story. In the end, he demanded to know what was happening, and only then had Helen relented and shown him where John was keeping Tesla to prevent him from injuring too many people._

_Gregory was incensed, and very dearly demanded the lot of them be banished from the house forever. All his work, all his careful preparation and guidance, years spent ensuring that Helen do something _useful_with her life, and she had thrown it away for the monsters. He had to let them stay, though, at least until they came up with a practical solution for Dr. Tesla._

"What I think it comes to," Barrie said, "Is what Wendy would have chosen."

"How do you mean?" Gregory asked. For all that this had started innocently some months ago as a conversation about fairies, Barrie's story was needling him in ways he couldn't explain. He needed to know.

"Would she have chosen to play forever in someone else's world, or would she have chosen to build her own?"

Gregory couldn't help but wonder when everyone had gotten so insufferably wise.

_"How could you _do_ this to yourself?" he had yelled at her. He'd never so much as raised his voice to her in his entire life, and she didn't flinch that he did it now. "How you let them talk you into this?"_

__

"It was my idea, father," she all but spat at him. "My idea, my experiment. You made me to think for myself, to seek to be more than the world had made me. How can you take such offense at this?"

"Because now you are…" he trailed off.

_"Because now I'm one of _them_?" Helen said acidly. "Because now I'm an abnormal, and I didn't have the good grace to grow fins or a tail in order to make myself more interesting to you?"_

_"Helen," he began, and stopped. Because she didn't understand. _Couldn't_ understand. He had never told her about the paradise beneath her feet, the one he'd been carefully shepherding her towards since he realized how brilliant and capable she was. He sighed, defeated, and she softened in response._

__

"I expect you shall take the Blood away?" she asked.

"Yes," he said. "But I shall arrange for it to be accessible to you. All five of you, and only if you act in concert."

"That seems fair."

_It wasn't until days later when he was well on his way to India that he realized neither of them had apologized._

"It's not so much about growing up as it is about growing into," Barrie said. "John the scholar, Michael the adventurer, and Wendy…whatever she became. None of them could have done it as children."

"None of them would have wanted to," Gregory mused, barely loud enough to be heard.

"Indeed," said Barrie. "I think that should have been a problem. Children should not be forced to grow up, but they should be allowed to."

"I find myself feeling sorry for Peter," Gregory said.

"Of course you do," Barrie said. "You're English. The desire to colonize and improve is ingrained."

"It's more than that," Gregory said.

"I know," Barrie said. "He will never know what it is he's missing. He'll only look in at the window and fly off into the cold."

In his mind, Gregory was already on the road to Mecca, a path now even more forbidden to Helen.

_"There's a young man to see you, Dr. Magnus," the housekeeper said. "Says he's a writer and has come to talk to you with regard to your opinions on fairies."_

__

The housekeeper's tone left nothing to doubt about how she felt on the matter. What went on in the basement was none of her concern, but it didn't seem like the work of a gentleman, even if that gentleman spent just as much time out of the basement curing ills as in it.

"Thank you, please show him in." Gregory had been warned by a fellow at the club that the writer would probably call on him. Having a reputation did have its drawbacks. But with all the business with Helen, he found himself welcoming the distraction. Fairies and an aspiring Scottish author should do nicely.

_And that was how it began._

"I suppose I'm just sad that Wendy never again had the chance to fly."

"What makes you think she didn't?"

* * *

**fin**

**Note**: I did tell vickysg1 there was a story in this. I just, you know, didn't except to write it.

Gravity_Not_Included, March 15, 2011**  
**


End file.
